


mon ange

by glitterie



Series: Angel!verse [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Guardian Angels, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-07 10:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11622090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterie/pseuds/glitterie
Summary: For Jack’s entire life, that man has been there. Eyes as brown and deep as pools of amber, hair golden and sunny-glowing, he’s been there for everything. Only - no one else can see him.When he shows up at the beginning of Jack’s junior year, he doesn’t question it. He only begins to wonder when the rest of the team can clearly see him too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> based off my post, can be found here: https://conventionalbullets.tumblr.com/post/163016591497/check-please-guardian-angelau

Jack stared at the man standing in the kitchen. He was achingly familiar and completely foreign at the same time, and Jack scrambled to connect the trailing thoughts. The man hummed an upbeat tune as he stood with his back to the door, and just as Jack was gathering his courage to approach, Holster charged past him into the kitchen.

“Bro! What are you making in here, this smells like Ransom’s aunt’s house. Except better,” Holster demanded. He leaned next to the man and inhaled deeply. Jack was swept with a sudden wave of… something, but he shook it off in time to hear him respond.

“Oh! Haha, it’s just a pie. I had some rhubarb left, and I found some strawberries at a store down the road, and I didn’t want to let it go to waste! You can have some when it’s done,” he offered.

Holster sagged against the counter. “Bro. You’re gonna make me fat if that tastes as good as it smells.”

“If you get out of my way,it’ll be done sooner,” he laughed. Holster shot out of the kitchen faster than a man his size should have been able to move. Jack quickly cornered him against the wall in the hallway.

“Holster, you can see him?” Jack asked. “What’s his name?”

Holster cocked his head. “You doing okay? Why wouldn’t I be able to see him? That’s Eric Bittle, he’s a frog. Did you hit your head in practice or something?”

Jack released him. “No, I - no. I’m fine. Sorry. I just - no.”

“Alright, if you say so. I’m gonna go tell Rans about the pie in the kitchen.” Holster bounded away up the stairs. Jack watched him go, then turned back to the man in the kitchen. He was half singing something so quietly that Jack couldn’t make out the words, just spare snatches of tune. He moved into the kitchen, staying carefully to the side so he wouldn’t get bumped into.

Eric noticed Jack out of the corner of his eye and jumped, his hand flying to his throat in shock. Something more flashed across his eyes for a moment - sharply calculating, but also a little afraid - but it was gone before Jack could see it clearly. Then Eric was a normal, if short, man, standing in Jack’s - no, the Haus kitchen and blustering up a storm.

“Lord, you gave me quite the fright! Do you live here? Are you on the hockey team? Oh, where are my manners? I’m Eric Bittle, although a few of the team are calling me Bitty. I think that’s it? The big one said something about hockey nicknames, then introduced to someone called… Shitty? I suppose I’m gonna have to get used to -”

“Jack.” Jack thrust his hand into the static between them, effectively stopping Bitty’s monologue. He looked vaguely affronted but mostly relieved as he took Jack’s hand and shook it happily. His stream of chatter began again, but Jack found himself distracted by the way Bitty’s hand fit smoothly inside his. It was calloused but even his callouses were somehow softer than most people’s hands. He turned Bitty’s hand in his, examining the soft hair dusted on his knuckles, and only looked up when he realized the kitchen had fallen silent.

“You’re holding my hand,” Bitty smiled. Jack dropped it like it had turned red hot and flushed when Bitty giggled. “Now, I didn’t say I minded, Mr. Zimmermann!” The timer he’d set on the edge of the stove chittered at him and he startled, turning around. “Well, looks like she’s ready to come out of the oven! If you stick around for a hot second, she’ll be cool enough to eat!” 

But when Bitty turned around, Jack had disappeared, presumably to his room. Bitty sighed, set the pie down, and pulled a sheet of paper covered in nearly illegible chicken scratch. He sat down at the kitchen table and began annotating it. “I don’t know how I managed to keep the boy alive for this long,” he muttered to himself, scribbling out a quick diagram of the Haus. He’d get Shitty to refine it later.

Up in his room, Jack pressed his back up against the door and slowed his breathing before sitting on his bed. He never thought he’d be able to touch the sunny man, and the corporeality of him was startling. His hands were so soft and warm, and he and smiled so brightly Jack still wasn’t convinced he was real. 

But now he knew his name. Eric Bittle. Bitty. 

Now to keep his distance.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, unbeta'd. hit me up if you would like, actually wanna beta this.

Jack had decided that he did not like Bittle that much.

Everywhere he went, Bittle showed up. He’d make small talk, then just sit near him and do… whatever it was Bittle did in his spare time. Sometimes he would drag Jack into the kitchen and prattle at him while he baked something for the team. And always, always, Bittle was watching him. 

He stole tiny glances at him while they studied together, tracked him during their practices, was always within eyeshot at parties. To be real, Jack was tired of it. If he had been a fan, why wouldn’t he just say so instead of skating around him like Jack would snap at him if he came clean.

That’s why, when Bittle proves to be unable to take a check, he volunteers his own time to coach him instead of letting someone else do it. 

Jack says it’s simply in the name of productivity that he gets him up at four in the morning to practice. Really, he’s been on this earth for 25 years, longer than Bittle, and he knows that you have to tire people out to knock their guard down. Plus, he might be slightly motivated by spite.

“Ugh. Lord, it is too early to be out here. What are you, some kind of hockey masochist?” Bitty complains.

“Your mind is clear in the morning, Bittle. C’mon, skates on, let’s go.” Bitty laced up his skates and did a careful lap around the rink. 

To his credit, Jack didn’t yell at Bitty. He was a good skater, but… this block was something almost insurmountable. Every time Jack came at him, he shrank away, whimpering in panic. Jack just… didn’t know what to do.

After their clinic, they sat next to each other as they changed into street clothes. Jack sighed, then said, “Do you wanna get coffee at Annie’s? I have some stuff I wanna go over with you, and I don’t have a class until ten.”

“Sure, Jack!” Bittle bubbled, and five minutes later found them walking to Annie’s in slightly stiff silence.

“So, I was thinking… if we can get to the real root of this problem, we might be able to make some more headway by dismantling it from the bottom up,” Jack suggested, staring into his black coffee.

“Oh! Well, uh, I’d really rather not talk about that? I think if we just keep working on it, I can just get over the physicality of it. That would work better for me.” When Jack looked at him, Bitty was frozen, hands clenched around his coffee cup so tightly he was in danger of crumpling it.

“Bittle. If you don’t wanna tell me, it’s fine.”

“No. I just…” Bittle trailed off, hissing something under his breath angrily. When Jack raised an eyebrow, he giggled unconvincingly. “If I open up, can we start clinic later next time?”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe.”

“This boy,” Bittle sighed with a smile. “Well, if you must know… it’s uh, it’s kind of unfounded. I’m just not a big fan of physicality. Probably because I’m so small.”

Jack pressed forward. “Most of these fears have to come from something, Bittle.”

Bitty stared over Jack’s shoulder. He could see the gears turning under Bittle’s floppy blond hair. Eventually, Bitty comes to an agreement with himself and shakes his head brightly. “Nope! If some repressed memories come up, I’ll be sure to tell you about them, though.”

“Euh. Bittle, if… if you’re having trouble talking to me, I can always have Shitty or Lardo-”

“Jack, I swear on my mama’s life, I can’t think of anything that might have caused this.” He glanced down at his phone. “Oh! We should get moving if we don’t want you to be late for your class, Jack.” They parted ways outside Annie’s, Bitty waving goodbye cheerfully and heading back to the Haus.

_/ \\_

When Jack returned to the Haus after his lecture, he thought it was empty. But as he climbed the stairs to his room, he heard voices coming from Lardo’s room. They paused as he reached the top of the stairs, and a distinctly female voice (that was not Lardo) asked, “You’re sure we’re sufficiently private here?” 

Jack was about to knock when he heard a familiar voice. “Yes, ma’am, I promise you no one will interrupt us,” Bitty replied. Jack crept to his room as quietly as he could and sat on the bed, busying his hands with something else. But he left his door open.

In Lardo’s room, Bitty paced, wringing his hands. “I’ve been given full Haus privileges by the team and we might have been better off in Shitty’s room, but that’s just, just too close to Jack, ma’am.”

Goddess looked amused. “‘Haus?’ ‘Shitty?’ and Eric, you know you have full permission to use my name.” She reached out and caught both his hands with her own as he passed by her. “You are, after all, my oldest and best. My favorite.”

“You’re very kind, ma’am, but I’ve been calling you ma’am for more than two millennia, and I see no reason to change that up now,” Bitty replied. 

“Very well, Eric, whatever you wish,” Goddess acquiesced. “So what is it you called me down to talk about? Could you not have come up to talk instead? I understand the desire for speed, but how necessary was it in this circumstance?”

“No, I-I guess I just, don’t feel like I’m ready? With this particular case, and the fact that I’m supposed to be mentoring - what did he choose as his name this time?” Bitty quirked his head to the side.

“Johnson. John Johnson,” Goddess deadpanned. “What that boy’s playing at I swear I’ll never understand. Sometimes I wonder why I still entertain him as an angel.”

“Because he’s had a hundred percent success rate, ma’am, we must give him a chance to fail before we can relinquish him,” Bitty explained patiently.

“My apologies, Eric. We were speaking of you. What is troubling you?” Goddess asked, patting the space next to her on the bed. Bitty sat and leaned into her, letting the golden light she emitted soak into him. She carded her long fingers through his hair with a hum. “You know, you should cut this. I’ve heard shaved sides are in, little one.”

Bitty made a face. “You still call me little one. I’m more than two thousand years old!”

“And I am more than two billion, little one. Please, tell me what ails you before I must return to my summit. Already the others grow anxious without my presence.”

“I worry that I’m not up to this task. And before you remind me that I am your oldest angel, with the most experience, and the best statistics, let me remind you that I know that and I’m still unconvinced. Do you remember, I told you how I developed a plan to spend more one on one time with Jack? It’s falling apart, ma’am, right before my eyes.”

“How do you mean?” she prompted.

“I forgot that most mortals have a basis for their fears. He was very concerned about getting to the bottom of my fear so we could work through it. But I’m not actually afraid of being checked!” Bitty wailed. He turned to Goddess and buried his face in her shoulder. “It’s been more than thirty years since I assumed corporeality, I’ve lost my touch.”

“No, you haven’t. Remember when you one went for almost a century noncorporeally, and then your first solid day you saved that one from cycling straight into that river? Eric, you are my most talented angel, and you wouldn’t be guarding this line if I didn’t think you could handle it. You just need time to adjust to life in this new place. You’re going to do wondrous things here,” she reassured him.

Bitty sniffed wetly, but nodded. “Lord, look at me, I am a mess.” He smiled at Goddess. “Thank you for coming down here.. I know it’s a lot for you, and it means a lot to me.”

“Anything for my favorite angel.” She pet his hair fondly, then looked up toward the sky. “But for now, I must leave. We will talk later, pet, and you will tell me about Jack. Through your eyes, not through his file. All my love, Eric.” One moment she was there, then the next she wasn’t leaving behind a small pile of burnished glitter. 

Bitty carefully brushed it into a bag, leaving it sitting on Lardo’s desk. “A thank you present,” he reasoned with himself. “For something she doesn’t even know you did.”

When he left the room, it was empty.

_/\\_

Jack cornered him downstairs after carefully inspecting Lardo’s room for a way to get out that wasn’t through the hall. Unsatisfied with his finding, he caught Bitty by the arm.

“Oh! Lord, you scared me! I-I thought everyone was still in class.” He smiled but his voice shook the tiniest bit.

“Were you in Lardo’s room with someone just now?” Jack demanded.

If it were possible for someone to blanch and flush at the same time, Bitty did that. “What? N-no, that’s insane! There’s no one in there now, is there? I-I didn’t see anyone while I was in there!” He pulled his arm out of Jack’s grasp. “I have to go to the library, but, uh, I’ll bake you something healthy when I get back? Something with oats, maybe?” He paused in the doorway, searching Jack’s face for the answers to a question Jack didn’t know was asked.

Jack nodded, and Bitty shot out the door without another word, leaving Jack with, if possible, more questions than he had started with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, my tumblr is [here](https://bittleandzimmermann.tumblr.com)  
> sorry abt the long wait!!! and even more sorry abt the wait that's gonna come!! i'm going away to pride camp to be gay in the woods in a few days, and i'm not bringing my laptop, so i won't be able to write for more than a week!! but i'll try to update quickly when i get back. it's probably gonna skip to mostly the end of sophomore year, unless the kegster where kent shows up is in freshman year - i can't remember, but i know i wanna rewrite that lmao  
> also like..... this is one of the worst thing's i've ever written, the first part at least. i was trying too hard to get it on paper that i kinda forced it?? so this definitely isn't my best work  
> also, just to be clear, goddess isn't a capital g God substitute. in my mind she's closer to aphrodite, except more in charge, and with slightly different powers/responsibility?? if you want more on that, hit me up on tumblr and i'll hash it out lmao  
> finally, the next thing to come in the mon ange universe is probably gonna be another side story?? given that bitty guarded alicia while she was being a model, i think i wanna write something with them?? so that'll come before i leave, but then this won't update for a bit  
> leave a comment/kudos if u liked this!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, unbeta'd and unedited.

Throughout the rest of Jack’s junior year, Bittle continued to follow him everywhere. It became something of a running joke, how Bitty was almost attached to Jack at the hip. 

Of course Jack laughed quietly along with the rest of his boisterous team. But sometime he thought he must be going crazy - because Bittle was really everywhere. Jack would turn around in the middle of a lecture, one of the few he didn’t share with Bittle. And once, while he was sleeping…

He was dreaming about something. Jack couldn’t quite tell what, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant. He whimpered, trapped halfway between waking and dreaming, and flung his arm out, connecting with something solid looming over him.

“Oof,” the person grunted painedly. “Lord, the things I do for this boy,” it mumbled to itself.

Jack’s eyes flew open and he bolted upright, flailing. “Who’s there?”

“Jack! Jack, calm down.” Jack slowly swam to himself, registering Bittle crouched in front of him.

“Bittle?” he slurred sleepily. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in your dorms?”

Bittle shushed him. “That’s not important, Jack. What’s important is getting you comfortable and back to sleep. Here.” Bittle produced a glass of water seemingly from nowhere, but when Jack tries to think about it all he gets are vague hazy images of a glass on his nightstand and he just accepts he’s still half asleep. 

That reminds him… “Bittle, am I dreaming? Are you a dream?” he asked.

Bittle giggled softly. “No, honey. I’m real. Here, touch me.” He reached out and laid Jack’s free hand on his forearm. The muscles shifted as Bitty carefully lowered himself onto the edge of Jack’s bed, and Jack felt the corded muscles twist under his deceptively plush skin. He was broken out of his fascinated reverie by Bitty admonishing him to “Drink your water, Jack, you’ve been sweating up a storm.”

Jack obediently gulped down the icy water. Bitty plucked the glass from his loosening fingers and arranged his blankets so that he was covered but his arms were free.

“There you go, sweetheart. Back to sleep now.” Bittle’s fingers brushed against his forehead and Jack felt his eyelids closing. Bittle stood up from his bed and padded toward the door. He turned and mumbled something, but before Jack could wonder what it was, Bittle was out the door and Jack was slipping under himself into sleep.

_/\\_

Graduation day finds Jack slowly, quietly organizing his things in his room for the summer, but really listening to the conversation transpiring in the room across the hall. He wasn’t eavesdropping, really, Bitty and Johnson just hadn’t realized he was there. He half heard what they talked about as he folded his clothes into his suitcase.

“Johnson, when you get back up there, Goddess wants to talk with you. I’m not able to say what about, just that I was told you tell you,” Bitty informed him authoritatively. 

“Bittle, you’re the only one of us who knows her real name. Why won’t you just use it?” Johnson whined.

There was a smile in Bitty’s voice as he replied, “Because you want me to so badly, that’s why. Don’t worry, once you’ve become her most trusted, then you’ll know her name too. Only takes a couple thousand years or so.” He laughed dryly, almost angrily.

“Bitty, my man, it almost sounds like you’re bitter about being immortal,” Johnson replied easily.

“Of course I’m not bitter,” bitty replied, and he didn’t sound like he was lying. “Who would be bitter about immortality, and helping people forever? I don’t ever wanna stop doing this.” There was a heavy pause, and Bitty carefully lifted a few folded shirts from a box and dropped them into the drawer. “By the way, if you bring “bitty” back up there to the rest of them, I swear I’ll get you on shit detail for the next millennium.” There was laughter in his threat, so Johnson just punched him in the arm with a loose fist.

“Bitty, if you think there’s any way I could not bring the best nickname ever back up, you are so sorely mistaken,” Johnson assured him, laughing and flopping back onto the bed that was soon to be Bitty’s.

Bitty worked in silence for a minute until he kicked Johnson off the bed to change the sheets. “You’re sure, though, that Bergey’s ready to be on his own again? You don’t wanna get an apartment with him for a year or so?”

Johnson shook his head emphatically. “No way. He’s almost completely physically healed, he has a job lined up, he’s thinking of taking night classes in his field, he doesn’t need me to be physically there anymore. Friends drift apart after college. And if I need to, I can always find a way to text him. He’s doing good right now.”

Bitty cast his mind back over the year leading up to graduation and knew that Johnson was right. “Alright, Johnson, if you say so. Can you get back up there by yourself, or do you wanna call Goddess down?”

Johnson considered for a moment. “If I can get myself up there myself, it’ll make her respect me more, yeah? And she might tell me her name?”

Bitty laughed again, happier this time. “Sure, Johnson, if that’s what it takes to make you progress in your skills, yes, she will be impressed.”

Johnson stood in the middle of the room, hands at his side, palms facing out. He breathed deeply, in out, then relaxed. A soft golden light showered onto him from above, cascading over his head and onto his shoulders. As he began to disintegrate, he opened his eyes and called to Bitty, “You have my dibs!”

“I’m your boss Johnson, were you really not gonna give me your dibs?” Bitty shot back. Johnson was gone before he could say anything back, and Bitty laughed to himself before finishing stretching his fitted sheet perfectly over all four corners of the bed.

Jack waited until he had exited what was now his room before sneaking through Shitty’s room out to the yard where the others were waiting. A minute later, Bitty exited the Haus. His figures were sculpted into perfect oblivion as he asked them what “dibs” were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back from camp y'all!!!!! it was way better than i thought it was gonna be - i kept crying about having to leave and last night i had three dreams about being back there i guess that's what going to a camp where everyone is gay and happy does to you!!  
> anyway here's the new update!!! i wrote this all tonight, i wasn't planning on updating till tomorrow so i could finish catching up on sleep tonight, but i felt so guilty about leaving this for so long that i had to do this tonight. so im like half asleep rn, forgive any stupid fuck ups pls  
> this is uh the most text heavy one yet??? i tend to write more in the not!fic/poetry style of things when i don't have energy to write, so we get this this week  
> as always, leave a comment/kudos if you enjoyed!!!! i'm on tumblr at [bittleandzimmermann](https://bittleandzimmermann.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> it took me forever to post this because i only remembered i'd finished it at like?? 2 am?? when no one's on?? this has been done for days lmao.  
> i don't have many extravagant plans for the other people in this story?? it's mostly just gonna be jack and bitty?? because i'm the worst lmao  
> there's not gonna be any smut, ever, and i'm gonna try to be canon compliant but there are gonna be a few time jumps here and there bc y'all don't wanna reread the comic except bitty's only goal is to keep jack safe.  
> feel free to come yell at me about this or anything else on my tumblr, @conventionalbullets


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